INEOS
VAM plant to be built at Hull / Over EUR 1.1 bn spending package for UK
 The site in Hull / UK where Ineos plans to build a VAM plant (Photo: Ineos) |
Ineos (Rolle / Switzerland; www.ineos.com) has decided on Hull / UK as the location for its new 300,000 t/y vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant. The olefins and polyolefins giant announced the choice for the new plant, which will cost GBP 150m (around EUR 175m), in conjunction with plans for an overall GBP 1 bn upgrade of its manufacturing assets in the UK. The sum will also include a GBP 500m revamp of the Forties oil and gas pipeline acquired from BP in 2017 as well as GBP 350m for a new power station at its Grangemouth site in Scotland.
The VAM decision has been dangling in the air for nearly a year. In April 2018, the group broke a half-year silence about the project, saying it would go ahead with plans for the new unit to replace an older facility at Hull closed in 2013 and was weighing whether to build a new one at Hull or at Antwerp / Belgium – see Plasteurope.com of 09.04.2018. At the time, Ineos said it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an unnamed “commercial partner” and had commenced front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for the project.
The Switzerland-based group has not yet confirmed the start-up date for the Hull plant nor whether any additional engineering work has been performed – US engineering group Fluor has already begun work on the power station. In 2018, Ineos said construction of the VAM facility, which is designed to reduce dependence on imports, could begin during 2019, with start-up pencilled in for 2021. In its 27 February 2019 announcement of the UK plans it did not mention a partner for the VAM plant nor reveal the rationale for locating it at Hull.
In view of Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe’s recent open letter to European Commission (EC) president Jean-Claude Juncker complaining about “green taxes” – see Plasteurope.com of 15.02.2019 – and the leak to the UK press of a meeting between Ratcliffe and prime minister Theresa May, speculation has focused on whether the Brexit-dogged British government had offered tax breaks. The UK press last year quoted director Tom Crotty as saying Ineos was talking to the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the project, and that “any help could tilt the scales in favour of Hull” – see Plasteurope.com of 06.07.2018.
In the wake of Ratcliffe’s letter to Juncker, The Guardian newspaper calculated – on the basis of the EC’s state aid data since July 2016 – that Ineos had received tax advantages worth GBP 155m from EU member states, with the largest share coming from Germany. It said Belgium had given the chemical group EUR 1.9m in grants to compensate for indirect costs from the EU emissions trading scheme.
The VAM decision has been dangling in the air for nearly a year. In April 2018, the group broke a half-year silence about the project, saying it would go ahead with plans for the new unit to replace an older facility at Hull closed in 2013 and was weighing whether to build a new one at Hull or at Antwerp / Belgium – see Plasteurope.com of 09.04.2018. At the time, Ineos said it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with an unnamed “commercial partner” and had commenced front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for the project.
The Switzerland-based group has not yet confirmed the start-up date for the Hull plant nor whether any additional engineering work has been performed – US engineering group Fluor has already begun work on the power station. In 2018, Ineos said construction of the VAM facility, which is designed to reduce dependence on imports, could begin during 2019, with start-up pencilled in for 2021. In its 27 February 2019 announcement of the UK plans it did not mention a partner for the VAM plant nor reveal the rationale for locating it at Hull.
In view of Ineos chairman Jim Ratcliffe’s recent open letter to European Commission (EC) president Jean-Claude Juncker complaining about “green taxes” – see Plasteurope.com of 15.02.2019 – and the leak to the UK press of a meeting between Ratcliffe and prime minister Theresa May, speculation has focused on whether the Brexit-dogged British government had offered tax breaks. The UK press last year quoted director Tom Crotty as saying Ineos was talking to the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the project, and that “any help could tilt the scales in favour of Hull” – see Plasteurope.com of 06.07.2018.
In the wake of Ratcliffe’s letter to Juncker, The Guardian newspaper calculated – on the basis of the EC’s state aid data since July 2016 – that Ineos had received tax advantages worth GBP 155m from EU member states, with the largest share coming from Germany. It said Belgium had given the chemical group EUR 1.9m in grants to compensate for indirect costs from the EU emissions trading scheme.
04.03.2019 Plasteurope.com [241935-0]
Published on 04.03.2019
German version of this article...